Unravelling The Matrix
By Zanny Begg
Rushed out to beat the release of the new Star Wars movie, The Matrix was this season's surprise winner. This latest film by the Wachowski brothers (their earlier effort was the sexy thriller Bound) is ostensibly about Christianity. It is a search for a cyber-Jesus called Neo (Keanu Reeves) who will save the world from machines who use human beings as a source of fuel. It is loaded with Christian symbolism: those fighting to save humanity are called the "Children of Zion"; when they search for answers they consult god (she is black); and the female lead (Carrie-Anne Moss) is called Trinity.
Beyond the Christian symbolism lies a plot which may be more radical than its creators intended. For The Matrix is less about god than it is about ideology, specifically the power of ruling-class ideology.
The film traces the transformation of Neo, who at the beginning of the film is a computer nerd, staring into his monitor wondering what the Matrix is. Life gets a bit more interesting when Neo is contacted by the leader of the Children of Zion, Morpheus (Lawrence Fishburne), who promises some answers. But before Neo can find the truth, he is whisked away by agents (led by Hugo Weaving) and held in a psychological prison.
Neo is contacted by Morpheus and presented with a choice to escape from the agents. He can take a red pill and travel the path of knowledge, where the answer to the Matrix will be revealed, or he can take a blue pill and return to the prison of ignorance. Neo opts for the former.
This choice sends Neo, tumbling like Alice in Wonderland, into a bizarre and frightening world called reality. Neo grasps that in late 20th-century capitalism, human beings are not masters of their own destiny but slaves, tricked by agents into believing the system is run in their interests.
And rather then being an alien force, the agents are the product of human greed, machines developed by humans but which are now out of control.
Morpheus explains to Neo that during the battle between humans and machines for control of society, humans obliterated the sun (the machines' source of energy), plunging the world into an ecological crisis. In order to survive, the machines started to use humans as fuel.
To maintain their control, the machines created the Matrix, a virtual reality where people live, work and die unaware that they are sweating for the benefit of others and oblivious to the ecological catastrophe that sours the earth. The struggle that Neo and the Children of Zion embark on is to break the Matrix. With virtual Kung-Fu, a little consultation with god and "guns, lots of guns", Neo, Morpheus and Trinity enter the Matrix to destroy the agents.
Despite the high-speed chases, shoot-outs and incredible special effects, the holy trinity soon discover that their battle is not really with flesh and blood enemies, but with the more elusive mass consciousness. They cannot save the world; they can only break people free from the agents' ideology so the people can save themselves.
Beneath its Christian trappings, The Matrix lends itself to a Marxist reading. The Matrix is about the fight against ruling-class ideas which trick people into believing they have something to gain from capitalism. The closing words of the film, "system failure", are not too far removed from the socialist slogan "fight the system".
Of course, the biblical theme of The Matrix means that much of the film is geared towards finding the One (the new Jesus) who will save humanity. But this does not have to be taken literally. Neo concludes the film by telling the audience that they themselves have to break the shackles of the Matrix.
The Wachowski brothers do not present us with the easy answer that god will save all. The new Jesus and his band of rebels operate more as a metaphor for all those who refuse to be slaves to the machine — environmentalists, trade unionists, feminists, socialists.
The other surprising and interesting revelation in The Matrix is that Keanu Reeves can act (well almost). Reeves is modest about his acting talents, commenting recently, "I know I am not the world's best actor, but I do my best". In The Matrix he delivers all that it required: a few lines, lots of action and a pretty face.
Hugo Weaving does a brilliant job as the ultimate bad guy who hunts Reeves down in a cyber-duel to the end. Although at times cheesy, The Matrix is more than your average action film and definitely worth seeing, probably more than once.